Dear Bunglehorn,

I enjoyed your little story about your patient’s consternation while drinking coffee at Starbucks. Seems he got one of the more provacative cups imprinted with random quips by “notable” figures in their The Way I See It series (#230):

Heaven is totally overrated. It seems boring. Clouds, listening to people play the harp. It should be somewhere you can’t wait to go, like a luxury hotel. Maybe blue skies and soft music were enough to keep people in line in the 17th century, but Heaven has to step it up a bit. They’re basically getting by because they only have to be better than Hell.
Joel Stein, LA Times

We can expect your patient’s indigination, but how can you capitalize? He feels offended, but he’s not sure why. Therein lies your opportunity. Use his befuddled reaction to suggest that he’s simply overreacting. Obviously, the writer is just having a little fun. Can’t Christians laugh at themselves? And what’s he going to do? Boycott Starbucks? No. He’ll drop the matter, ignore the offense, no harm, no foul.

If you can do this, you’ve scored a major point. You’re helping your patient blur the line between friendly parody and spiteful mockery of his faith. In due time, he’ll become desensitized to these kind of pop shots we fire behind the blinds of culture. Your objective is to render him incapable of discerning between healthy jest and hurtful joust.

Make no mistake, this innocuous event is hurtful. The author reveals his animosity, not in his hyperbolic opening “Heaven is totally overrated,” but deeper in his statment about the fantasy of Heaven keeping people in line 400 years ago. First of all, this is in goosestep with reasoning that religion is merely a means of population control. It is atheistic at its core and will garner serious agreement among modern agnostics, anarchists and nihilists gurgling in the leftist fringe (I have to laugh, they’ve renamed themselves “Progressives,” but they are nothing of the sort!). The idea that religious dogma is a marketing ploy is just a contemporary twist. Moreover, the implication that their pre-Enlightenment ancestors were easily placated by blue skies and soft music ultimately insults their own lineage. If you look closely, you’ll notice a violation of the Enemy’s 4th Commandment, “Honor your parents.” Bonus point!

More seriously, this writer’s comments can be summed in a single word: juvenile. He betrays his ignorance by fostering our silly myths. His understanding of Heaven and Hell is no more refined than a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Seriously, is it so difficult to attribute his words as the laughable ranting of an apathetic know-it-all teenager? No! That’s exactly how Starbucks can rationally publish this nonsense without fear of Christian, Jewish or Muslim retribution! The corporate powers-that-be contend they are simply “sparking conversation In the tradition of coffee houses everywhere.”

Yet when is an empty commentary the catalyst for thought-provoking discussion? Without the the underlying trickery I’m exposing for you now, how can one adequately respond to blustering? This doesn’t incite question and reason. It doesn’t consider fact, history or tradition. It’s plainly a puerile attack! It’s nothing more than a 3 a.m. adolescent dorm-room discussion between bong hits.

Ahh, the psuedo philosopher’s eagerness to validate any idea (or more accurately his unwillingness to disregard retarded thought) spawns such frivolous conversation. And that leads us back to your patient’s course of action: ignore the sour feeling in his gut and accept that he’s over-thinking the entire matter. Meanwhile, Starbucks dutifully claims legal shelter in the weak disclaimer on the cup, “This is the author’s opinion, not necessarily that of Starbucks.” Of course the company selects which opinions they wish to distribute, so let’s give them credit due for aiding and abetting us.

Warmest Regards,
Wigglebrick

One Comment to “Heaven is Totally Overrated”

1. 1

   Nice timing. Today, Pope Benedict reminded the world that Hell is real and eternal. Note his predecessor’s simple catachesis:

   [Heaven] is neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but that fullness of communion with God, which is the goal of human life.

   [Hell] is the ultimate consequence of sin itself. Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy.
   Pope John Paul II

    

   Donglesack
   March 28th, 2007 @ 11:45 AM

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